Australian Teens Spend a Staggering 1,200 Hours per Year on Social Media, with Damaging Consequences

Social media now dominates many aspects of modern life,
particularly among the youth, and as such it is of vital importance that we understand
the true scope and possible effects of this cultural and technological phenomenon.
To this end the Australian Pathological Society (APS) recently compiled a new
report, titled ‘Digital Me’, which sought to identify how adults and teenagers make use of such
platforms and explore the effect of social media and digital technology on
Australians’ wellbeing.

The report surveyed 1020 adults and 156 teenagers on their
use of social media and its subsequent connection to their wellbeing, finding
that teenagers throughout Australia are spending as much as 1,200 hours on
social media apps and platforms annually, amounting to full 50 days or
approximately one-seventh of the year.

It also emerged that adults are nearly as bad, spending around
950 hours each year browsing through popular social media platforms such as
Facebook and YouTube.

However it is of course among potentially-impressionable
teenagers that this is considered more of an issue, especially as 60% of
parents admitted to never monitoring their child’s online activities and
communications. While the majority of Australians do report a positive online
experience overall, the link between an increased reliance on social media and
in increase in cyber bullying, as well as subsequent drops in self-esteem
levels, is worrying and cannot be ignored.

Even more alarming is the fact that according to the survey,
15% of teenagers reported being contacted by strangers daily, and nearly 10%
said they actively communicated with, or responded to, strangers daily. This
alone invites some rather disturbing possibilities.

APS spokeswoman and community psychologist Dr Lyn O'Grady
advises that parents take a more active role in the digital lives of their children,
whilst being careful not to be overly severe lest their son or daughter act out
in rebellion. Instead, open communication and a lead-by-example approach are
the recommended methodology.

“Social media is an asset for teens, but they are less able
to identify risks and more likely to act impulsively compared to adults,” Dr
O'Grady asserts.

“[They] need boundaries, rules and the guidance of parents
to help them make good decisions - just as they do offline. If [parents] become
too controlling they lose that opportunity to influence.”

Among teens, 29% said they had been a victim of online
bullying via social media platforms in the past year, but the survey also revealed
that the issue extends beyond children and teens and in fact affects adults too,
with one-in-five Australian adults experiencing online bullying in the past
year. Furthermore those adult respondents who were classified as heavy mobile
phones users, which amounts to 54%, were found to be more likely to use their phones
immediately before bed, which research has shown has a negative impact upon
sleep. They were also far more likely to check their phones within minutes of
waking up.

These individuals are more likely to check their phones
while walking, while eating, while in the company of others or even for no
discernable reason at all, and this constant state of connectivity has been
linked to bullying, trolling, and low self-esteem among adults just as it has
with teens.

Among adults the worst culprit in terms of damage to
self-esteem appears to be Instagram; 21% of Instagram users were classified as
having low self-esteem, as compared to 13% of non-users. Overall, heavy mobile
phone users in both age groups admitted that they felt an increased pressure to
look good online, and this is likely the source of many of the aforementioned
issues.

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